—Allah said: “Peace be upon you, O Prophet, and the mercy of Allah and His blessings.” The Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, answered: “Peace be upon us and upon the righteous servants of Allah.” Gabriel then declared: “I bear witness that there is no deity worthy of worship but Allah, and I bear witness that Muhammad is His servant and Messenger.” I have not located this report in any of the standard hadith sources. Shaykh ‘Ali al-Qari reproduces it in Mirqat (1/556), quoting Ibn al-Malik and indicating its weakness with the wording: “It has been narrated that the Prophet….” (*) An insertion taken from Sifat al-Salat; it occurs in the context of the following hadith (p. 894). (1) That is, no being in existence deserves to be worshipped in truth except Allah, whose existence is necessary in and of itself; so explain al-Qari and others. This is the meaning of the shahada that safeguards the blood of the one who pronounces it and will rescue him on the day he meets Allah, provided he acts in accordance with it and does not confine himself to mere utterance. Many Muslims have erred by taking it to mean only that there is no Lord and no Creator except Allah, and have therefore concluded that a person who worships something else—by seeking aid from other than Him, slaughtering for other than Him, and the like—still holds correct belief and sound faith. In truth, the shahada requires singling out the deity in these and all other acts of worship; that is the criterion separating the believing monotheist from the disbelieving polytheist. The idolaters to whom the Messenger of Allah was sent held this mistaken understanding of the shahada, restricting themselves to it and hence refusing to affirm that none is worthy of worship in truth except Allah. Thus they were monotheists regarding tawhid al-rububiyya (acknowledging divine lordship) yet polytheists regarding tawhid al-uluhiyya (exclusive worship). This is what—